Plato

(427-347 BCE)

   Greek philosopher whose writings exerted major influence in almost every field of the Renaissance, including literature, the arts, and the sciences. Plato was the student of Socrates. Upon his master's execution, which deeply affected him, he traveled to Egypt and Italy. He returned to Athens and established his own school of philosophy where he applied the Socratic method of teaching and where Aristotle became one of his pupils. Plato wrote approximately 30 treatises, most in dialogue form, including the Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus, Timaeus, and Laws. He emphasized the abstract and spiritual aspects of reality, contrasting with Aristotle's advocacy for the empirical observation of nature and its phenomena. Only a handful of works by Plato were known in the West during the medieval era. It was not until 1400 that most of his manuscripts were recovered when copies arrived in Italy from Constantinople. These were systematically translated into Latin in the early 15th century and made available to a wider audience. Marsilio Ficino, the humanist employed by Cosimo de' Medici, was the one to finally complete the translations of all of Plato's known works. Ficino also founded the Platonic Academy with Cosimo's backing and tried in his own writings to reconcile Platonism with Christianity.

   See also Neoplatonism.